Dissertation on First Principles of Government

Thomas Paine Archive ^ | July 1795 | Thomas Paine

[Pistias]

a theory that checks and balences can limit abuses of power

If you take as one of your premises that men are evil, then yeah, that looks about right to me.

[another1]

Thank you for the page, and bump for a great article.

[SuperLuminal]

Re: Post 15......Your answer is really unrelated to his question.

The question isn't about the former Constitution and the purposes of the Founding Fathers.

It is about the Gramscian world we have been living in for many decades and those who continue to support it.

[Restorer]

I disagree. I believe the original question was trying to make a case that it is possible to put the individual good before the common good in a meaningful sense. My point was that the common good is merely the accumulation of all our individual goods. Thus the distinction is a false one.

Only a single person’s “individual good” can actually be put ahead of the common good, since any individual good carried to an extreme promptly begins to intrude on the individual goods of others and therefore the common good.